Front "Wing" good for 15 - 20 F COOLER
OK, I have a Big Block 383 in my daily driver 1968 Dart and sometimes the engine runs a little warm in our SoCal summers.. so I thought a way to get more cooling Air Flow funneled to the radiator would be to fit a "wing" below the huge obstruction to air flow that is the front bumper..
BUT, prior to ordering a "Chin Fairing" type Front Wing online, I figured I'd fab one here at home to see how it flies...
And all things being equal, after a few days of driving around town, I find a Water Temperaure drop of between 15 -20 Degrees F...!
My Water Temp gauge would normally read between 200 - 215F on an average run, now it's an average 180 - 185F... and this is after I was both "hammering" the engine and doing my average Stop-N-Go traffic around city streets...
On some of the longer straights, Including a 5 Mile / 70 MPH Freeway run, the temp would drop to 175F.. 8)
BTW, I call it a "wing" because I made it in the approximate shape of a Balsa Wood Glider wing, like this one
I made the "wing" for my Dart out of tin sheet material found at ACE Hardware. It is fastened to the Radiator Mounting with Four self-threading screws.
Here are a couple of pics :
Keep in mind that this is a "Function over Form" type wingnuttery, so while it ain't pretty, it works good...:-D
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OK, I have a Big Block 383 in my daily driver 1968 Dart and sometimes the engine runs a little warm in our SoCal summers.. so I thought a way to get more cooling Air Flow funneled to the radiator would be to fit a "wing" below the huge obstruction to air flow that is the front bumper..
BUT, prior to ordering a "Chin Fairing" type Front Wing online, I figured I'd fab one here at home to see how it flies...
And all things being equal, after a few days of driving around town, I find a Water Temperaure drop of between 15 -20 Degrees F...!
My Water Temp gauge would normally read between 200 - 215F on an average run, now it's an average 180 - 185F... and this is after I was both "hammering" the engine and doing my average Stop-N-Go traffic around city streets...
On some of the longer straights, Including a 5 Mile / 70 MPH Freeway run, the temp would drop to 175F.. 8)
BTW, I call it a "wing" because I made it in the approximate shape of a Balsa Wood Glider wing, like this one
I made the "wing" for my Dart out of tin sheet material found at ACE Hardware. It is fastened to the Radiator Mounting with Four self-threading screws.
Here are a couple of pics :
Keep in mind that this is a "Function over Form" type wingnuttery, so while it ain't pretty, it works good...:-D
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